When he was 10, Derrick Ervin learned that his father had died unexpectedly. The sudden loss devastated him. Derrick didn’t know how to bear the weight of his pain, but he kept up appearances.
He earned good grades, excelled at sports, and received a football scholarship. But he still felt broken. Then, when Derrick was 21, he received another blow when his mother died of a brain tumor.
After college, Derrick worked many jobs and married a woman named Shemelia. But soon he was hiding a double life, dealing drugs. He convinced himself he was providing for his family at all costs. Before long, he was staring down a long sentence for offenses related to dealing large amounts of cocaine.
He received a sentence of life without parole at Alabama’s St. Clair Correctional Facility. His oldest son was 10, the same age Derrick was when his father died.
The loneliness and despair of incarceration weighed on Derrick daily. Derrick remembered the faith of his parents who had taught their children about Jesus. He longed for purpose and direction. With nothing else to hold on to, he felt a nudge to take a “leap of faith” and pray.
Derrick began his new journey with a question: Who is this “Jesus” that his parents had believed in? He longed for a faith that was his own. He dove into the Bible, from the Old Testament to the New. Every day, Derrick spent hours poring over scripture.
He also enrolled in Prison Fellowship Academy®, a yearlong program that helps participants embrace biblically based Values of Good Citizenship™. It is offered by Prison Fellowship®,an organization that works to restore America’s criminal justice system and those it affects.
Learning to live in healthy community, he unlearned old destructive habits and began to heal the emotional wounds he’d ignored for years.
“The concepts of accountability, fellowship, and brotherhood form a beacon of hope in a difficult setting,” Derrick, Prison Fellowship Academy graduate.
In 2019, Derrick’s sentence was reduced and he was released in 2020. It was a struggle to relate to his sons and wife, but he worked through it in time and with patience.
In 2024, 1,872 incarcerated men and women graduated from the Prison Fellowship Academy and Prison Fellowship Grow at 188 sites in 41 states.
Market Data:
Missions & Evangelism —
A large percentage of Christian teens (68%) shares that they have never had training specifically for evangelism, with another 13 percent saying they are “not sure.”
Overall, roughly 1 in 5 Christian teens (19%) has had this sort of training, with that number rising just slightly to 23% among teens who have had a faith conversation with a non-Christian within the past year.